


Restless

by Ruingaraf



Category: Biohazard | Resident Evil (Gameverse)
Genre: Character Study, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-30
Updated: 2013-01-30
Packaged: 2017-11-27 12:00:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 903
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/661768
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ruingaraf/pseuds/Ruingaraf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The road to hell is paved with good intentions, and so also it would seem, is the road to vengeance. RE6 spoilers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Restless

Long ago, Chris would not have considered himself a vengeful person. Not until he saw the face of horror, atrocity upon atrocity committed against innocent people. In the name of what? Science? Money? Terrorism?

He was young and full of ideas of justice, needed to give this slaughter some purpose, cause, meaning. Him and the rest of the team pushed, tried to make their story known but Umbrella’s claws were too deep and it wasn’t _fair_.

On the plane to Europe he realizes he needs someone to blame for all of this, for wrecking his life and his future and for all the bodies and later an entire city leveled to the ground. For a little girl become a monster and for the bad news that had to be delivered to families of brave men under a treacherous captain.

Wesker became that person, the lightning rod for his anger at the situation. Without that, he thinks he might have fallen apart, slowed down, realized exactly how insane it was that half a dozen people were trying to tear down an international corporation.

But it gets him through the day, knowing that someday, Wesker would answer for what he’d done.

That man shows his face in Rockfort, in Antartica, and reveals his inhumanity in the form of glowing eyes. It makes it easier to hate him, somehow, knowing he is no longer a person. Then, Claire gets involved, the grudge becomes personal.

Him and Jill take out Umbrella in Russia. There are whispers of Wesker, but he is still out there and they will not stop, do not rest easy until they find him. Mission after mission, they are young and full of determination.

And eventually, find him they do, but in a shatter of glass both his partner and the light at the end of the tunnel are gone. They have won, the side of good, but Chris cannot help but feel he has lost, cheated out of both resolution and the one person who has seen him through all of this.

He loses sight of things, loses hope. There is no longer a target for his anger and now he is alone. Lethargic is a generous term, he wonders if what he does has a purpose and if what he's really trying to do it to shut Pandora's Box once more.

Then there is Africa, he finds his partner, his friend once more, though time has changed them both. He is forced to turn his gun against her and he hates Wesker even more for doing this to her, doing this to him. He is consumed by anger, justified though it may be, and throws everything he is into the fight. Has to stop him.

They win. Riotousness has seized the day, but in the end he feels slower, softer. Something is missing and he tries to fix things, become a better captain to his men. And he is a good captain, leaves no one behind and wears the mantle of leadership well. But part of it is always empty.

And then there is Estonia, amnesia and six months of nameless, reasonless self-hate, and he is thrust into the battle once more with a vengeance and a purpose.

He will not see any more death, he is sick of it and he will kill that woman a thousand times before she hurts one more person.

He aims his gun at Ada Wong and Leon catches his over-amped anger, pulls him back, reminds him that blood on the stone and a hanging noose are not always the way to solve problems. Part of him is angry with Leon, thinks him a fool, but the other man has seen just as much and his eyes are just as jaded, so Chris can respect that way of doing things.

He focuses on the mission, begins to question the stem of his anger.

Later, he sees himself in Jake, unbridled fury cast against an immovable object. Realizes he can’t vilify Wesker, make him the root of all evil because even if he made so many people suffer, Wesker was still a man, the man who was this boy’s father and Chris has killed him. Killed a man, not a demon or an idea or a virus.

He does not know who he is or what he stands for and in that moment part of him wants to die from the bullet of Jake’s gun because he has been in this bioterror arena far, far too long, he can’t even keep his men safe and he is sick of death following him like a swarm of flies. He just wants to throw in the towel and what better way then as the target of justified revenge?

But letting Jake kill him would be the easy way out, dying in a way that is “fair” and “just” instead of struggling on, finding the answers on his own. A tense moment passes, Jake does not kill him and so Chris pushes forward, moves on, finishes the mission. If there are answers to be had, he doesn't find them.

It is now, fifteen years later, that he begins to realize that revenge is a crutch and not a strength, that all this time he has been crippling himself by trying to blame someone or something. 

In the wake of Piers’ sacrifice, he does his best to cast that crutch away.


End file.
